Many of us watched on the eve of Facebook’s IPO as they celebrated with an all-night hackathon. Developers in jeans and hoodies sat on couches, staring at the luminescent screens of their silver MacBook Pros, focused and driven to create the next big product feature or app that, ultimately, may or may not improve the Facebook experience. The “Like” button, for example, was first envisioned and created during one of their hackathons.

In this context, “Hacker” is a marked improvement from the commonly held stereotype of the underground, anti-authoritarian computer geniuses that take immense pleasure in breaking into computers primarily to obtain “secure” information that belongs to the government. But both types of hackers share a spirit of unstructured and unbounded innovation. Expert computer programmers harnessing passion and raw ingenuity for solving problems and accomplishing hard things – this embodies the hacker mindset.

But sadly, when we picture developers within large corporations, we often think more about “Office Space” than we do about “Hackers.” If we applied the inspiration from hacker culture and actually encouraged unbounded innovation inside the walls of corporations, we could vastly improve the economy and unleash innovative thinking in large organizations across the globe.

Enter the Craftsman Hacker

The organizations that feed us, manage our money and keep us healthy are leveraging software as a differentiator, yet most of them fail to tap into the intrinsic motivation of their technical staff by embracing the hacker mindset.

It’s clear that even a more modern definition of “hacker” doesn’t quite meet the needs of large enterprises. When these organizations make mistakes, the ramifications are more severe. Conversely, when risks pay off, the benefits are greater. For example, a company you may know best for manufacturing lawnmowers and tractors has a much bigger mission, aimed squarely at global challenges and opportunities: the impact of population growth on food production, and growing affluence in developing countries leading to greater urbanization, more infrastructure, improved housing and food choices.

What better problem to inject some disruptive innovation to advance our society by orders of magnitude? This company understands how to harness innovative thinking and is taking big steps toward solving a complex, pressing problem by - you guessed it - hosting regular hackathons.

We need to infuse craftsman-like care into the raw spirit of hacker innovation to create a whole new breed of “Craftsman Hacker” in today’s corporations. The good news is that I see a clear recipe for creating a Craftsman Hacker culture:

Dedicated unstructured innovation

The key here is really dedicating time to the practice of creating something entirely new without restriction. When pressure and deadlines mount, it’s very easy to delay or cancel periods of unstructured innovation because the value is hard to measure. Sometimes, the results of unstructured innovation don’t pay back immediately or directly since it may be a source of inspiration for an entirely different solution. And we all know what happens to initiatives in corporations that are hard to measure…

Dedicated time can come in many flavors. Twenty-four hour Hackathons are just one flavor. Google famously allows their developers to spend 20 percent of their time on anything they want as long as it benefits the company. Rally Software has 10-day Hackathons every quarter. Regardless of the logistics, set time aside (away from the distractions of the day-to-day grind) and make it part of your culture.

Focus on pride and quality

We all appreciate fine craftsmanship, high quality and attention to detail. We talk about handmade items with emotion that simply doesn’t exist with mass-produced items. While we want the unbridled creativity that comes from unstructured innovation, we also want to balance that with an eye towards pride and quality.

This balance is a challenge, but it’s an important one. Blending wild, unstructured innovation with an unwavering focus on pride and quality creates products that are virtually unmatchable. The obvious example here is Apple - the company seems to have achieved the perfect balance - it is one of the most innovate organizations in the world and its products ooze craftsmanship.

Sustainable pace

Many of us have fond memories of pulling all-nighters when we were young. While it sounds impressive, we all know that our best work is not done when we’re sleep deprived. Do you want your bank’s programmers creating software on two hours of sleep that manages your money? Does that instill confidence?

Working around the clock is also generally bad for personal lives. Even the most forgiving family member or loved one gets tired of being alone or competing with a computer for attention. While the hacker mindset can lead to amazing intrinsic motivation, destroying personal lives would likely kill it.

Connect with customers/users

From 37Signals to Apple, there are many examples of innovative companies that don’t use any customer input in the creation of their products. Yet that’s not the whole story. Steve Blank, author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany, recently published a video blog where he talks about Steve Jobs regularly visiting the Palo Alto Apple Store to observe customers. So while “asking customers what they want” can yield less than desirable results, watching customer behavior and engaging with customers is the only way to ensure that technology meets its intended purpose.

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries presents a process for managing a start-up or creating a start-up in a larger organization. While he doesn’t explicitly mention talking with customers, he introduces a “build-measure-learn” loop, which is all about quick delivery to users in the spirit of learning from feedback.

It’s time to unleash hacker innovation on the world’s serious problems - not social networks or criminal activity. The good news is that unleashing innovation isn’t that hard. The recipe we introduce above will unlock creative juices and tap into intrinsic motivation to create more innovative results. Balancing hacker qualities with an eye towards craftsmanship ensures repeatable success in large organizations.